Best Of Emma Reed Turrell's "What Am I Missing?"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from What Am I Missing?: Discover the Four Blind Spots That are Holding You Back, and How to Overcome Them by Emma Reed Turrell

Perspective isn't about seeking absolutes of right and wrong, swapping one blind spot for another - it's a matter of appropriateness: When we're letting go of blind spots, we need to let go of the idea that the way we have always done things in the past is right, or that the way others do things is wrong.

It's far closer to the truth to accept that there are versions of right that come with context and caveats and that the closest we can get to the next right thing is to look for what's appropriate.

p. 81

Whether you're a Gladiator or not, if you sometimes feel stuck in a pattern of resistance, you can begin to unstick yourself simply by volunteering for the tasks ahead. Try saying, 'I choose to', instead of I have to', and notice the sensations in your body change, even when the task is not one you relish.

p. 73

Broadly speaking, life offers us two options whatever our blind spot profile - to change something or to accept it. This is not to say either will be easy. But if we can't acknowledge that this is the choice and take pains to reconcile ourselves to these options - either to do something differently or make our peace with what is - we can fall into a sticky hinterland of resistance, a place in which we feel unable to effect change but equally unable to accept things as they are. This resistant space is a breeding ground for stress and anxiety. Living resistantly feels like revving an engine without engaging the gears. We burn through fuel and get nowhere, until we find ourselves running on fumes or broken down at the side of the road

p. 72

'If you do care about him as much as you say, she said after a few weeks of me pleading his case, 'you'll stop accepting him this way. You are not helping him by enabling him to continue like this; in fact, you're making things worse? […] 'You're not helping them by accepting them this way' is a line I've borrowed and used with many a client since as they try to love someone hard enough that they'll stop drinking, or tread on eggshells to avoid an abusive altercation. 'If not for you,' I say, 'then for them. Because as long as you're wishful thinking, you're part of the problem.

p. 149

She believed that, to become more securely attached, we must first experience what the other attachment styles feel like - to learn something from them and grow. She would say that an avoidantly attached individual, like Charlie or Birgitta, needs to feel the need for connection again and switch their feelings back on, including the painful ones, to become more ambivalent for a time, en route to security. In this way, Birgitta led the way as she ventured out of the relative safety of her avoidance and accounted for her feelings and desires, even when they risked rejection from Charlie. She was allowing herself to want more than the limited safety of the walls she built around herself; she wanted the security of emotional intimacy. And when Charlie came to understand that his reluctance came from a long-buried longing of his own, he allowed himself to feel and understand his own need for care.

p. 173

The 'discovery' approach is the antidote. Coming more naturally to individuals who were raised with more freedom to fail and greater tolerance for change, but learnable for everyone else, it allows us to make choices that are fit for purpose and based on what we know right now. This approach doesn't demand that we predict what we can only find out in the future. It accepts that things will change and our needs will evolve, and it doesn't tie us to a permanent, unchanging state of being that will trap us in commitments we made (in some cases as early as infanthood) to be always amenable, placid, dependable or consistent. The discovery' approach taps into our wise mind, a concept from dialectical behavioural therapy that blends our reasonable mind (driven by logic) and our emotional mind (driven by feelings).

The result is flexible, forgiving, responsible and accountable. For it to work, we must tune in to our feelings as rich seams of data that can help propel us forward to our best-case scenario at any given time.

p. 154

It's this starting position of not knowing, and bringing curiosity, attention, empathy and respect, that creates inclusion, not a tick in the box, or a mandatory afternoon of training, or some virtue-signalling tokenism from the top.

It's all of our jobs to imagine alternative possibilities, to accept individuals truths and to know our unknowns, particularly in the workplace, where people's private lives are exactly that. If I assume that I'm missing something, that I will undoubtedly have a blind spot and so will you, it can help us take a step towards celebration of diversity. And when I advocate for celebration, I'm not speaking merely of tolerance, or even acceptance of difference, but of coexisting, mutually respected, validated realities. Multiple perspectives and more than one truth, with an opportunity to share and to grow from a collective understanding.

p. 220